Sunday, 18 November 2012

Off to the land of tea

I was recently offered a job in Qingdao, China and will be accepting it enthusiastically! I'll be teaching at the very least 1 math/ESL class, a listening/speaking and/or computing class, and maybe even some AP stats and calculus.

It's a university prep school in which the students study immersion style for one year before heading off to a North American university. Like any school, they are always looking to expand their range of courses, so, if I want to, I can create my own course/materials! Obviously this would help both me and the school, so I am most likely going to pursue this option. From the sounds of it, they also want to start a 2 year program, and want to offer weekend classes for students/adults that want to take them, so there are ample opportunities for extra work if I want it.

If i were to draw up an ideal job for myself, this would be remarkably close to it, so I am so glad that I found it. The way in which I found it was quite random, so I'll share it here.

I was on the bus on my way to wander aimlessly downtown when my phone rang. It was Telus calling to ask me if I wanted to upgrade to an iphone 5 or some other smart phone. I told them that I would likely be out of the country by the time my current contract expires(late February), so getting a new phone, which would require a contract here, would make no sense.

Immediately after I hung up, a young man in sun glasses asked me casually where I will be going. I told him that i wasn't really sure, but I had been applying to a bunch of jobs in Korea and Japan. As it turns out, he was off to China the very next day to teach English in Xi'an. His qualifications were not all that different from mine, so I thought that it couldn't hurt to start looking in China myself.

That night I went to Daves ESL cafe to check out the china job scene and the second Ad was for a job teaching math in a university prep school that teaches math, science, English, and business courses with locations in Qingdao, Dalian, and Xi'an. I met the qualifications, so I figured it couldn't hurt to apply.

Within the hour I got an e-mail asking if I could do an informal interview the next day, so I did. It went really well, and within a few days he sent me a potential instructor questionnaire, which I filled out that day and sent off. He liked the answers, so he scheduled a formal interview for this past Tuesday. That went really well and within a few days I had a formal job offer, together with a contract for me to look over. I am going through this carefully, but so far it looks awesome. I will definitely accept it.

The job will start mid-February, so I still have plenty of time to see my friends before I head home in January and stay until I leave. It'll be good to spend some time at home before I go to a whole new world for an undetermined period of time. I could see myself staying for a while if it's even half as good as it seems.

It's a little nerve racking flying literally half the world away, but all the magic happens outside of your comfort zone, so it's definitely worth a shot. The city looks absolutely amazing, so I am pretty excited about it.